Tom McClusky, a vice president of the Family Research Council (FRC) yesterday said that America’s third party will not be conservative or liberal, rather, it will stand for opposing same-sex marriage as its singular focus, should marriage equality continue to be adopted by states. McClusky is the Vice President of Government Affairs for the Family Research Council. The FRC is a Southern Poverty Law Center-certified active anti-gay hate group, headed by Tony Perkins.
“Family Research Council vice president Tom McClusky yesterday appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show to discuss a Politico article on how same-sex marriage has become ‘virtually a dead issue’ among the senior brass of the Republican Party,” reports Right Wing Watch’s Brian Tashman:
McClusky denied concerns that opposing marriage equality will make the GOP more unpopular by arguing that polls which show growing support for legalizing same-sex marriage are ‘skewered’ because people are likely lying in opinion surveys out of fear that they would be criticized for revealing their true views to pollsters. ‘The other side is taking up the cause of bullying and it’s kind of ironic because they’ve really mastered the art of bullying,’ McClusky argued, saying that gay rights supporters are trying to ‘silence’ groups like the FRC.
Tashman has the audio at Right Wing Watch, but here a transcript excerpt:
Mefferd: If the GOP continues to go in a direction where they will not get on the side of traditional marriage and be willing to fight for it, what do Christians do?
McClusky: I think you will—there are always threats of a third party—I think if something like that were to happen you would see a third party. It would be made up of more than just disgruntled conservative Republicans. On the marriage issue there’s African Americans who normally vote Democratic, there’s Hispanics, and the same on the life issue, and there are a lot of good Democrats like say in the state legislature of New York who fought against same-sex marriage and Maryland who tried to, I think what you see is a lot of people drifting from both parties into a third party or some sort of independent party that is more pro-life and pro-marriage.
Last year, McClusky wrote, “Laws undermining the sanctity of marriage anywhere diminish marriage everywhere. If marriage is not a sacred institution, grounded in natural law, for the raising of families, then what is it?,” and “Homosexual marriage isn’t an issue of individual rights, since every American can marry — right now — if they choose. The fact that there are restrictions on who they can marry, and at what age, or restrictions on marrying relatives, does not mean they are being discriminated against, but that marriage is defined in a certain way.”
But not the right or fair way. That’s why you folks call it “traditional.” Tradition doesn’t make it right.